What is favicon? Favicon is an image located at the most left side of your blog url. Normal or default favicon for a blog at blogger.com or blogspot.com is an image "B". Now, if you need to change that image to be something from your own creation, follow the instruction below:

1. You have to have your own image from somewhere else or you can create your favicon image. You can use Adobe Photoshop etc. Try to size the file into 100 pixels x 100 pixels. Then you need to change it into an image icon file. To do this follow the step 2 below.

2. Open URL address http://www.favicongenerator.com/ Then locate the image that you would like to use as your Favicon and make sure that the dimensions are perfectly square (ie. 100 Pixels x 100 Pixels). Press browse button to select the file's location on your computer and select the image.Then, press the Generate Favicon! button. If you succeed, a link below the button appears something like "Click Here to Download Your Favicon!" then click that link. After downloading, you need to save it and the next step is you need to simply upload your favicon.ico to an online host.

3. After you have the image you would like to use as your favicon, goto your Blogger.com blog and create a new post. It does not matter what you call it since you don’t need to publish it. Make it just as a 'Draft' (Don't publish it. Once you have created a new post use the image upload button to upload your favicon to your Blogger.com blog. Once you have uploaded the image, you will need to switch to “Edit HTML” mode if you are using the “Compose” mode. Once you are looking at the HTML you will see something like this:

Then copy that URL start from http:...until the end of that URL code. So, this is your favicon URL address.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

In this page, you will see some pictures of giant ships and their loading. Do you know how big latest containerships ever built? How long the ship is? How wide the ship is? What is the draft or draught depth? Below is a Hapag-Lloyd containership with its container is being piloted by a tugboat to berth at a port. Can you predict its length, its draft, and its capacity? Guess!

Perhaps, Emma Maersk of AP-Moller Maersk is the biggest containership ever built in this planet. Is that true? It has 397 meter length, 60 meter width, and 14 meter draft depth with a capacity of 11,000 TEU (Twenty Feet Equivalent Unit). The image below showing the "Emma Maersk", the giant containership.

However, other shipping companies are also competing. There are some shipping companies start employing giant containership, as big as Emma Maersk. Hapaq-Lloyd, OOCL, and many others pushing their competitiveness by operating these giants.

Below are two images of OOCL Shenzhen

Are all these giant ships safe for its containers as well as for the ocean? How about this picture!

Monday, September 28, 2009

THE value of advertisement benefits derived from the country's F1 team is 100 times more than the cost of investment for the team, former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said.

He said it was not a waste of money to invest in the country's F1 team as the advantages, including tourism and technological advancement, had always outweighed the disadvantages.

Even when the country was experiencing economic recession and negative growth, Mahathir said, there were industries that could flourish such as tourism.

"We viewed Formula One as an important instrument to promote Malaysia to the world," he said. He said Malaysia would have to pay US$1 million (RM3.5m) just for a three-minute advertisement in Japan. According to news reports, it is estimated that at least RM1 billion a year is needed to keep the FI team.

"With the F1 race, Malaysia is shown to the world for hours. We don't have to pay a single sen. If we were to calculate the advertisement in Japan alone, it may run into US$100 million or US$200 million.

"So imagine... more than 300 television stations telecast the F1 race. People will know more about Malaysia if we have our own F1 team," Mahathir said. He said investing in an F1 team was not merely about motor racing as technology developed for the motor racing engine could be applied for the country's automotive industry. Mahathir said that owning a team would also encourage the country to produce its own drivers to take part in the world-class race.

Malaysia has been involved in Formula One since 1999 through the Sepang circuit which has been on the race calendar since then. Petronas, the national oil and gas giant, has made further advancements in this arena via its sponsorship of the BMW Sauber team for the last four years.

Mahathir, who is also the Petronas advisor, said it was cheaper for Malaysia to set up its own team than taking over the Sauber team after BMW withdrew from sponsoring the team.

"If we (Malaysia) can invest billions of ringgit for corridors which we can't see, why can't we invest for our own F1 team?" he said. The national F1 team will integrate a Malaysian technical and pit crew totaling some 200 people.

Six local and international drivers have been shortlisted for evaluation and the team will announce their two drivers by the end of next month. — Bernama

[The Picture of F1 circuit and the image of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohammad are from aother sources]

LONDON (AP) -- World stocks fell Monday after disappointing data from the U.S. undermined hopes of a fast economic recovery and a sharp strengthening in Asian currencies hurt confidence among the region's exporters.

Meanwhile, pledges from the Group of 20 rich and developing nations to keep stimulus plans intact failed to boost sentiment.

Asian markets sank even more, with Tokyo slumping 2.5 percent on fears that a stronger yen will hurt its key exports sector. Wall Street was likewise expected to open lower. Dow industrials futures were down 23 points at 9,596.00 and Standard & Poor's 500 futures were down 2.50 points at 1,038.60.

U.S. manufacturing and home sales data released Friday stoked concerns over recovery prospects in the world's largest economy and pushed American stocks lower for a third day.

Orders for durable goods, a key indicator for the manufacturing industry, unexpectedly fell in August, declining 2.4 percent for the second drop in three months. The government also said that new home sales rose to 429,000 last month, which was less than analysts expected.

The U.S. economy is ''not recovering as fast as we thought,'' said Jackson Wong, vice president at Tanrich Securities in Hong Kong.

The G-20 summit that ended Friday in Pittsburgh gave little added support to markets despite leaders' pledge to maintain fiscal and monetary stimulus measures.

''It will come as a relief to markets that officials are not going to prematurely reverse such policies but the risk is that both fiscal and monetary policy is left too loose for too long, fueling potentially significant inflation risks,'' said Mitul Kotecha, analyst at Calyon.

The G-20 said it wanted to reduce imbalances in the world economy -- reducing U.S. consumers' reliance on foreign debt and boosting domestic demand in large exporting countries like China.

Kotecha noted that ''one of the key adjustments that will need to be made is a weaker dollar, especially Asian currencies, but there was no mention of this in the communique.''

That did not prevent traders from buying up Asian currencies aggressively on Monday.

The dollar fell as low as 88.22 yen Monday, its lowest point since December, but recovered losses to trade at 89.53 from 89.60 late Friday in New York. The euro fell to $1.4629 from $1.4698.

Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average fell 256.46, or 2.5 percent, to 10,009.52, at one point dipping below the 10,000-point level for the first time in two months, after the yen reached a nine-month high versus the dollar. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index declined 435.99, or 2.1 percent, to 20,588.41.

A stronger yen can hurt Japanese exporters by reducing the value of overseas profits when sent back home and can make their products less price competitive. Many Japanese exporters have based their earnings forecasts on the assumption that $1 buys an average of 95 yen.

Japan's new government, which took power this month, has expressed little concern about a stronger yen and even says it is potentially a good thing as it can boost consumer spending by making foreign goods and raw materials cheaper.

Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii on Monday said exchange rate stability was desirable but reiterated his opposition to intervening in foreign exchange markets to weaken the yen's value, according to Kyodo news agency.

In New York on Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.4 percent, its third straight decline.

Oil prices, meanwhile, traded lower. Benchmark crude for November delivery fell 58 cents to $65.44 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Friday, the contract added 13 cents to settle at $66.02.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Hong Kong (ANTARA News/Asia Pulse) - The value of Hong Kong's total exports and imports in August fell 13.9 per cent and 9.8 per cent over the same period last year, the Census and Statistics Department said Thursday.

The value of total exports fell 13.9 per cent to 213.3 billion HK dollars (US$27.5 billion), after a year-on-year drop of 19.9 per cent in July, with the value of re-exports down 13.2 per cent to 208.3 billion HK dollars and the value of domestic exports declining 37.3 per cent to 5 billion HK dollars.

The value of imports dropped 9.8 per cent over a year earlier to 235.1 billion HK dollars. A visible trade deficit of 21.8 billion HK dollars, equivalent to 9.3 per cent of the value of imports, was recorded.

In the first eight months of this year the value of total exports dropped 17.2 per cent over the same period last year, with the value of re-exports falling 16.3 per cent and the value of domestic exports dropping 41.5 per cent. The value of imports fell 17.4 per cent.

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 26 (Bernama) -- China-based tyre manufacturers should consider setting up operations in Malaysia.This is to avert the recent punitive tariff of 35 per cent imposed on Chinese-made tyre imports by the United States.

"China buys a lot of rubber from Malaysia as raw material to produce tyres there. If manufacturers set up factories and export from Malaysia, they would avoid the impact of the increased tax," the Deputy Chairman of the Malaysia-China Chamber of Commerce, Ir. Liew Choon Kong told Bernama here on Saturday.

The decision by the United States to impose extra duties on Chinese-made tyres has triggered strong complaints from local tyre companies in the country.

It has also led to China strongly opposing the act of trade protectionism by the United States.

According to Liew, if tyres are produced in Malaysia by China-based manufacturers, the specifications would not be categorised as being "Chinese", which would enable the product to enter the US market.

"In this way, it would be cost effective as well, while steering away from the impact of the new US tariffs on Chinese tyres," he said.

Liew said the move would also indirecty open up more business opportunities for Malaysian and Chinese companies to work hand in hand, in view of the current economic environment.

He also urged local food and beverage (F&B) producers to penetrate the Chinese market as there was more untapped opportunities due to the growing population.

"The Chinese have difficulty getting coffee suplies. So, this is an example of a market Malaysian producers can look at," he said.

JAKARTA, Sept 26 (Bernama) -- In view of North Sulawesi's rapid investment and economic development, Indonesia's central government has declared the province a Special Economic Region (SER).

"North Sulawesi is the second to have passed the verification as a SER in Indonesia," Governor SH Sarundajang said.

The governor said the central government gave serious attention to North Sulawesi and named it a SER after the province had made every effort to accelerate the development of its economic-supporting infrastructure projects.

Sarundajang said that the Bitung international sea port overlooking the Pacific Ocean as a gateway for exports and imports in East Indonesia, had a strategic function to support the SER.

"Besides Bitung sea port, Sam Ratulangi airport has also established international flights to a number of countries such as Singapore, Taiwan, the Philippines and Japan," Sarundajang was quoted as having said by Antara News Agency in Manado, the provincial capital on Saturday.

According to the governor, both domestic and foreign investment in North Sulawesi had increased significantly from year to year along with exports.

Meanwhile, North Sulawesi councilor Benny Rhamdani said the province should receive positive response after having been named a SER.

"The central government has placed its trust in the province and this proves that the economic development in the area has substantially progressed," Benny added.

He however pointed out that unemployment and poverty rates in the province was still high enough and therefore a solution was needed immediately to prevent it from impacting negatively on the economic sector.

North Sulawesi, is growing in popularity among Malaysians including investors seeking new opportunities, ever since AirAsia began operating direct flights to Manado.

Overall, PPSB has been making profit over a decade eventhough ferry operations suffered losses, he said.

"Since I took over Penang Port in 1999, it has been making profit. We were never in trouble in any kind of situation," he told reporters when responding to Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng's remark that the port recorded a shocking 24 per cent decline in container traffic in the second quarter of this year.

Ahmad said Guan Eng had quoted the wrong figures in his press statement on Tuesday. The statement would tarnish PPSB's image, he said.

He said PPSB had managed to achieve the best performance in container handling history by recording 92,439 in Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) in August alone and had never incurred losses in the second quarter of this year as was reported in the media yesterday.

Contrary to Guan Eng's statement, Ahmad said Penang Port recorded a 13 per cent increase in TEUs from 199,391 to 225,322 in the same period.

"He (Guan Eng) don't have the authority to speak for PPSB before consulting us. I am the authority to speak for Penang Port.

"We have our Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and the federal government will evaluate us every year. I will have to go if I fail to discharge my duties efficiently," he said, adding that container handling is expected to record a 12 per cent increase in the third quarter of this year.

"Despite losses in ferry operations last year, we still managed to record RM23.13 million in overall profit last year.

"If the state is serious about helping us, they should contact us and make arrangement for discussions instead of creating bad publicity for PPSB with wrong figures," he said.

Despite the global economic slowdown, container throughput this year is expected to match last year's volume of 929,639 TEUs, he added.

Guan Eng had said in a statement on Tuesday that the Marine Department records showed ports in the country handled 10 per cent more containers in the second quarter of this year compared to the first, reflecting a recovery in both domestic and transhipment cargo.

Container traffic at the 10 major ports rose to 3.79 million TEUs from 3.44 million in the period under review while the volume at the Penang Port was only 2,000 TEUs, less than the Johor Port, in the first quarter, he said.

Guan Eng had also asked the federal government to give more attention to the Penang Port by injecting more funds to help save and keep the port afloat.

At issue is Google’s decision not to connect Google Voice customers to certain conference calling and other lines because of what it says are excessive access charges by the providers of those lines. AT&T, which is required to connect its telephones to all lines, says Google is discriminating against certain uses of its network, a no-no in the network neutrality world.

Google, meanwhile, says it doesn’t have to follow the same rules AT&T does.Whether AT&T is right depends on all sorts of technical interpretations of the commission’s policies and which regulations actually apply to Google Voice, which is a technological patchwork of telephone calling and Internet communication.

But that really isn’t AT&T’s primary concern. The company is mainly trying to score some debating points and show that sometimes companies have good reason to treat some uses of their networks differently than others. (If you do want to get into the policy minutiae, start with this post from the public-interest telecom lawyer Harold Feld .)

What AT&T and Google agree on is that the system for exchanging payments between phone companies for completing long-distance calls is deeply flawed. I looked into this last year, when Kevin Martin, then the F.C.C. chairman, wanted to reform what is called intercarrier compensation. After a week trying to understand those rules, I ran away screaming. Our long-distance system is so topsy-turvy that it makes the Mad Hatter’s tea party look like drill time at West Point.

But to simplify it as much as possible: When your long-distance company connects your call to a telephone served by a different company, it pays a fee to terminate the call. This fee can range from almost nothing to as much as 7 cents a minute. The difference is set by a number of factors, including state regulatory regimes. In most cases, those access charges far exceed the actual cost of completing a long-distance call, and every telephone user pays higher bills because of these charges.

So why do these charges exist? Originally, they were to subsidize service in sparsely populated areas, and they are still defended by the largely rural phone companies that benefit from them, many of which have allies in Congress. (Those phone companies get a number of other subsidies, too.)

Meanwhile, some enterprising phone companies, aided by local regulators, have taken to encouraging entrepreneurs to set up businesses that attract lots of inbound calls. Those include the free conference calling services, free fax lines and telephone pornography. The phone companies rebate some of the high call termination fees they receive to the companies running these services.

Maybe the commission will decide that Google, since it is turning into a telephone company, will need to connect to those lines and pay the fees. Maybe it will agree with Google’s argument that its services are different enough to be exempt from the rules AT&T follows. But consumers would benefit most if the commission used this as another prod to do the difficult work of bringing some rationality to the way that long-distance calling is priced.

We welcome comments, opinions, articles, related pictures from readers that suit with this blog mission. We reserve the right to edit or delete any material posted to us. Please send all materials to: bizstra@gmail.com.(Disclaimer: The opinions, articles, pictures, and comments expressed in this blog do not necessarily represent those of this blog)